The edition and ongoing study of a hundred or so letters in Akkadian from the city of Nahur found in the main palace of Mari among several thousand tablets and fragments allows us to reconstruct in great detail the history of Upper Habur under the reign of Zimri-Lim. It is true that the region examined is narrow on the scale of the entire Near East and that the period concerned does not exceed ten years! However, this geographical area, which bore the name Ida-Maraṣ, long before it became part of Hanigalbat, is of great political, ethnic and social complexity.  It was first of all the site of the first great urban developments in the Near East. It was very early on one of the main meeting points between two linguistically distinct populations, one Semitic and the other Hurrite. The historical impact of this contact over time, i.e. whether the contacts between these two "cultures" were converted into political terms, is a subject of research, although it has become somewhat out of fashion since Syria, especially Northern Syria, was closed to research due to the war. The displacement of archaeological excavations to other places such as north-eastern Iraq, largely linked to the opportunities offered by Iraqi Kurdistan, is however not without interest for the historical studies on the Habur basin despite the geographical distance. Indeed, the links between this region and the countries of Akkad and Assur, and even with those situated further to the East, in the Zagros, are well attested. It is enough to recall the frequent movements of Akkadian armies in Upper Jezira (during the reign of Zimri-Lim, the army of Ešnunna invaded twice the east of the Habur basin). It is also striking that the hinterland of Ešnunna was also called Idamaraṣ at the beginning of the second millennium.

Until about 1800 Upper Habur is very unevenly documented by epigraphy. Between the end of the 3rd millennium and 1900 the region witnessed the installation of Amorite populations divided into tribes, the formation of new territories and the founding of settlements. This Amorite development did not erase the strong Hurrite settlement, but Amorite institutions culturally dominated the political landscape. The Amorite colonization is a process that was not yet completed around 1800 BC.

Tiny kingdoms were gradually formed on the model of the large neighbouring kingdoms while retaining strong communal institutions. The temporary integration of the Habur Basin into the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia created by the conquest of Samsi-Addu is now seen as a decisive turning point, especially because the king would have introduced administration and scribal norms from the East. Several phases of scribal traditions are known for the third millennium, but it seems that the use of writing declined around 2000 BC, so that until Samsi-Addu no local written source is attested until now. The contemporary (reign of Yahdun-Lim) or later (reign of Zimri-Lim) evidence from the Mari archives on this pre-Samsi-Addu period nevertheless suggests an already intense political activity in the region. Faced with external powers, the cities (most of them autonomous) formed defensive confederations that were certainly based on ancient tribal solidarities: these geographical and political entities are the Yapṭur, the Sumum, the Idamaraṣ and the Apum (hinterland of Tell Leilan). The Upper Habur region derived its wealth from a soil, nature and climate suitable for agriculture and extensive livestock farming. It was also an important stage in the pendular trade between Assur and Kaneš... The presence of Assyrian merchants in the 19th century certainly stimulated trade and urban development.

Since the control of this region was particularly important for the kings of Upper Mesopotamia, alternatively those of Mari and Ekallatum, we have a quite unique documentary coverage. Most of the documents come from Tell Hariri, but there are also archives found in the Habur Triangle itself, at Tell Leilan and Tell Chagar Bazar. The documentation of all these sites is still far from being fully published. This is especially true of the enormous documentation from Mari. For example, the corpus of letters of the nomadic chiefs who went up to the Habur Basin in season is being edited: the information is as important for the historical events as for the social and economic structures of the region. The semi-nomadic groups were an integral part of the inhabitants of the Upper Habur. But their relationship with the townspeople appears to us today with all its complexity and ambiguity.

The project will study  an essential organ of political life of the (autonomous) cities in the Upper Haber region during the time of the Mari archives, namely the Assembly. The city of Nahur, which was conquered by the last king of Mari, was governed by one of his servants who, being unable to impose the authority of Mari on the region by force - his military potential was very limited - willingly resorted to persuasion, by making strong speeches in local political meetings held in various cities (Nahur, Urkiš, Ašnakkum...). The role of these "palabres", to use a definition given by J.-M. Durand (professor emeritus at the Collège de France), has already been often studied. But new material and a more detailed contextualization allow us to see a key institution of Amorite societies in a new light and much remains to be done or said. In addition to the Nahur documents already mentioned, I am currently working on several dozen unpublished pieces. For example, a long letter, though fragmentary is highly interesting. It is addressed to the Elders of Ida-Maraṣ by a king of Kahat then in full rebellion against Mari. Its content is a speech which was intended to persuade people to become hostile to Zimri-Lim and his local allies. Such a letter should not have reached Zimri-Lim and we should not know about directly, but by chance for us it was diverted to Mari. The kinglet’s speech included a great retrospective of the history of the region and its relations with the powerful kings outside; the author wanted to demonstrate that the mistakes of the past could be avoided. Such a testimony shows in a lively and concrete way the form and content of the speeches held in political assemblies where a real historical consciousness was awakening. This work should lead to the elaboration of a study on the assembly as a political decision-making body, which is part of the Rethinking - Governance in the Ancient Near East project.